The tricks needed to pretend that the blind see and the deaf hear are not difficult to learn, modern faith healers can learn them and use them effectively to gain huge amounts of money. Darren Brown did a tv show to explain how these tricks are done.

So could the earliest miracle stories have been evidence of Jesus as a con artist?

"miracle" always seems to lack evidence whether because none can be found, is unknowable at the time, or the miracle wasn't a miracle at all just something that happened that someone else said was a miracle.

"stories" are just stories, an anecdote of something real or imagined.

Before miracles, how about proving that the man existed at all. There's more archaeological evidence of King Arthur than Jesus. Jesus has the same level of historicity as Hercules. Meaning, we have evidence that people believed and passed around stories....and nothing else.

Logged

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

My reason for suggesting this is that we know from both the bible and ancient historians that learning party tricks was essential to all those making a career change from carpenter to rebel and prophet. No rebel prophet would be considered without a few magic tricks. There were a lot of people similar to Jesus around.

Now available, rebel prophets needed-

"Careers open to those willing to learn the tricks of the trade, a little water to wine could be an advantage with the crowd, unfortunately positions are short term due to execution by Romans"

My reason for suggesting this is that we know from both the bible and ancient historians that learning party tricks was essential to all those making a career change from carpenter to rebel and prophet .... Fraud by modern faith healers is a serious issue too.

My bolding.

Agreed. I've seen party tricks in church with my own eyes - the old uneven-leg-length fixed on stage with emotional music playing in the background trick. Many people were "saved" that day - Pastor Ray McCauley reaped a great ongoing financial reward And also the simple trick of backing the winners and shunning the losers. We were shunned after the prayer group failed to cure my girlfriend's father's colon cancer. People who went into remission were embraced as "proof" of the power of faith.

No rebel prophet would be considered without a few magic tricks. There were a lot of people similar to Jesus around.

Maybe, but I think this could be giving Jesus too much credit It's far easier to write about Harry Potter than for somebody to actually perform like Harry Potter.Some educated Greeks with a message writing a whole life-time after Jesus died would have had no trouble spinning the incredible yarn based on the threads of oral midrash floating around amongst a small rebel cult of early Christians tired of complying with the outdated, inexplicable, and complex rigors of the old Jewish religion.

The simpler explanation is that the miracles were just a product of oral transmission errors, exaggeration, and make-believe to suit a particular story line.